My disappointment with the iPad (even though I will get one anyway), is exactly that it's (so far) pretty poor for creating things. All I expected/hoped for before it was introduced was that I could write and possibly do a bit of drawing on it, and I was really disappointed that this is not really possible yet.

not really sure what kind of drawing you are talking about, but these guys haven't had too much trouble

plus there are tons of videos on youtube. mostly of brushes on the iphone. but there are some ipad ones also

Quote:

Originally Posted by bulk001

Right here. Till there are HTLM 5 tools that do the sort of interactive type things like playhousedisney.com, pbskids, nickjr.com etc. we will keep using Flash.

or it won't matter. particularly for those groups. They might decide to go with standalone apps at no cost with some advertising or even low costs and no ads. A lot of parents aren't keen on having kids online on the openmarket that is the web. One mistype and a kid could be on a porn site or such. But with an app, that risk lowers. Plus you can take the game with you. I have stopped counting the number of times a game on my iphone has kept my 7 year old nephew from being a total wreck as the only kid at the table eating out. And i'm probably not the only adult that has experienced that.

It's not obvious that their excuses had merit at all. In fact, their excuses were and are without merit. No 3rd party had access to these APIs previously, yet, it's hard to find graphics software on OSX that sucks as much as Flash. This also doesn't excuse all the Flash related crashes, which this has nothing to do with. So, while there might be advantages to this API, Adobe's lack of access to it doesn't explain the problems with Flash on OSX. But, now, their excuses just got pulled out from under them.

I also don't think Apple created this API "just for them". It's probably an existing private API that they felt could now be published. Although, I would not be surprised to learn that the motivation for publishing it at this time was to put an end to the excuses. Now, of course, Adobe will no doubt say that they have to "study" the API, and there will be more excuses about why it will take them years to incorporate it, if history is any guide.

While it doesn't excuse all of their problems, of which there are many, it certainly explains why playing H.264 video through a flash player was the pig it is in CPU usage. There is just no denying that. If other 'graphics' apps had a need to play H.264 video, then yes, they would also have chewed up CPU cycles. More related, other video apps that were doing H.264 would also benefit immensely from access to this API. Adobe never claimed API access to HW accel for H.264 would solve all of their problems. Hell, they don't acknowledge some of their problems. But there is really no denying that the poor performance of Flash when playing H.264 was a direct result of the work all being done in software via the CPU instead of being offloaded to the GPU. That is really just a fact. Obviously there is merit to Adobe's claim that HW accel access would reduce their CPU load when playing H.264 video. How can you possible argue otherwise. That is precisely why Apple developed the API in the first place (H.264, not flash).

Does Adobe have other problems with Flash? hell yes! Their other apps (of which I have not used many) have all been consistently poor experiences. Even Reader is a POS that I avoid when possible. But my disdain for Adobe doesn't cloud reality.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

the catch there is that most of those professionals are probably locked into Adobe's whole world. they are also using photoshop, illustrator etc. And thus it makes sense that they would use lightroom because it was designed to work with said programs seamlessly, much as all of Apple's ilife and iwork go together.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jareskog

As a Mac owner, flash is horrid on OSX, but that is not Adobe's doing, it is Apple not allowing Adobe access to OSX's GPU API's to use graphical hardware acceleration. Let the fanboy-ism stop.

putting the blame on Apple, despite the full truth is the very nature of fanboy-ism so how about you stop first.

It is fact that Adobe built Flash (actually pretty much all their programs) ground up for Windows, and then added translators for Mac OS X. There's even a statement from Adobe in the last six months or so that the code is almost identical. It's also fact that Carbon was created because Adobe didn't want to have to redo their software for Mac OS X. Eventually they had to because Apple dropped Carbon, but they were not happy about it.

this is as much to blame as any alleged blocking of access to any APIs, if not more so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tulkas

Could you provide some evidence that Apple licensed the GUI from Xerox? Xerox sued Apple for patent infringement and lost. Why would the sue them for a patent that Apple licensed from them?

Are you sure it was a patent case.

As I recall they sued for copyright infringement not patent infringement because they didn't have a valid patent at the time. Either because they never got one at all or because it had somehow lapsed. The court actually tossed most of the case because they waited 5 years of awareness of the Apple GUI before filing and because they were trying to claim a copyright on the idea of a GUI and not actual elements, which is what Apple sued Micosoft over (leading to MS using a 'recycle bin' rather than 'trash')

As I recall they sued for copyright infringement not patent infringement because they didn't have a valid patent at the time. Either because they never got one at all or because it had somehow lapsed. The court actually tossed most of the case because they waited 5 years of awareness of the Apple GUI before filing and because they were trying to claim a copyright on the idea of a GUI and not actual elements, which is what Apple sued Micosoft over (leading to MS using a 'recycle bin' rather than 'trash')

yes, I think you are right. Xerox lost a copyright suit against Apple and didn't have an enforceable or valid patent. Neither of which supports the idea that Apple licensed the UI from Xerox.

While it doesn't excuse all of their problems, of which there are many, it certainly explains why playing H.264 video through a flash player was the pig it is in CPU usage. There is just no denying that. [...]

I don't see how you can suddenly declare it meritorious just because Apple publishes an API. It doesn't account for their lack of development effort and the obviously poor quality of the software. It's a badly written piece of code period. The argument uses the assumption that Adobe's claims for the reasons for bad performance are true and then uses that to say, "Look Apple released the API they said they needed, so they were right." More than a bit circular.

But, the ball is definitely in their court, and their reputation depends on them fixing it. If they dont they will have zero credibility and won't exactly look competent, either.

I don't see how you can suddenly declare it meritorious just because Apple publishes an API. It doesn't account for their lack of development effort and the obviously poor quality of the software. It's a badly written piece of code period. The argument uses the assumption that Adobe's claims for the reasons for bad performance are true and then uses that to say, "Look Apple released the API they said they needed, so they were right." More than a bit circular.

But, the ball is definitely in their court, and their reputation depends on them fixing it. If they dont they will have zero credibility and won't exactly look competent, either.

As I said, Flash does suck. They have not put the effort into the Mac platform that it deserves and they deserve no sympathy. Nor should Apple share any of the responsibility for the the vast majority of the problems.

But, you are mis-stating the logic. Adobe claimed a lack of the APIs hindered their performance for H.264. This is unquestionable true. If you are doing h.264 decoding, using Apple's API to gain HW is obviously going to be faster than using software decoding through the CPU. Now that Apple has released their API, it proves Adobe was right when they said they did not have access.

As I first said, some people were trying to discount Adobe's claims of lack of access to the API. They said things like "other apps run well" "Adobe has everything they need to make it run fast, just like other apps". These excuses to hate on Adobe were simply poorly thought out. It really should be clear as day to anyone that off loading the decoding to the GPU would benefit any app that does h.264 decoding. Adobe has not had this ability. Other apps, trying to to do h.264 would similarly be CPU hogs when trying to do h.264 decoding...because without this access, they have to use the CPU.

The faulty logic would be for someone to believe that because Adobe Flash is crap and Adobe has been negligent of their Mac products, anything they claim must be a lie. Their claim of not having API access was 100% true, even it others wanted to claimed this was not true. Having GP access makes a difference, even if others want to claim this can only be true for Apple apps and not for Adobe apps.

Now that Apple has granted them access, the ball is indeed in their court. They could very well still produce a version that has crap performance, even when using the new API. But that doesn't change the fact that they did not previously have this access, nor the fact that using the GPU to do the h.264 decoding (the reason for the API) is specifically meant to improve performance of these types of apps.

Flash does a lot more than H.264 playback. Their other problems cannot be attributed to a lack of access to this API. No one said they would. That is simply a strawman, but not a good one. I, for one, am sure that Flash will still suck, but the onus is now on them.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

... Their claim of not having API access was 100% true, even it others wanted to claimed this was not true. ...

Well I don't think anyone that I can recall ever claimed that they had direct access to the hardware for decoding. Technically, they don't have that now, they only have access through a now official API. So, yes, in that trivial sense, their claim was true, and in fact still is.

It still doesn't make their claim that this is why flash performance sucked at all times. It doesn't say anything about why it crashes constantly. It doesn't explain why Flash generally sucks overall. And it does not explain the fact that other software got decent performance, compared to Flash, not using this particular API, but other existing APIs. All this does is make it so they are now on the spot to prove that they can make a decent piece of software for the Mac with this API. But, even if they do, it doesn't mean that this was the only thing holding them back.

So, they are out of excuses. Although. at this point, it's pretty much a non-issue. Flash's days are already numbered for reasons that aren't related to Mac performance and stability. If they were smart, they'd stop committing their future to it and get on board with the future that's going to happen.

Edit: I was just looking at a Flash item on a page that I loaded. It was kind of funny that there was a checkbox in the Settings... that was labeled: Enable hardware acceleration. Really!? That was fast. Or is that setting just left over from the Windows version?

Well I don't think anyone that I can recall ever claimed that they had direct access to the hardware for decoding. Technically, they don't have that now, they only have access through a now official API. So, yes, in that trivial sense, their claim was true, and in fact still is.

It still doesn't make their claim that this is why flash performance sucked at all times. It doesn't say anything about why it crashes constantly. It doesn't explain why Flash generally sucks overall. And it does not explain the fact that other software got decent performance, compared to Flash, not using this particular API, but other existing APIs. All this does is make it so they are now on the spot to prove that they can make a decent piece of software for the Mac with this API. But, even if they do, it doesn't mean that this was the only thing holding them back.

So, they are out of excuses. Although. at this point, it's pretty much a non-issue. Flash's days are already numbered for reasons that aren't related to Mac performance and stability. If they were smart, they'd stop committing their future to it and get on board with the future that's going to happen.

Edit: I was just looking at a Flash item on a page that I loaded. It was kind of funny that there was a checkbox in the Settings... that was labeled: Enable hardware acceleration. Really!? That was fast. Or is that setting just left over from the Windows version?

That 'trivial' sense, was the only way it was meant to be true. As in they now have access to HW acceleration for H.264. Sort of like a guy honestly saying his car has no gas. Once it is proven that he has no gas, that is just as true in a 'trivial sense'. Although it might still be a piece of shit that is also missing a battery, oil and spark plugs and won't run anyway, it was still true that it had no gas.

I think the actual claims were something like, other graphics apps aren't pigs like Flash, so Adobe is just bitching when the say they need HW acceleration, cuz other apps don't. This ignores that most of the apps mentioned wouldn't benefit from H.264 decoding on the GPU, but was used anyway. Apps that actually do h.264 decoding and are therefore relevant for comparison, would also benefit by having access to this API...but only for their .264 decoding. If they are a poor performers in other ways, then this won't help. Just. Like. Flash.

No one claimed HW accel was a cure all for all of Flashes problems. I certainly never did. I don't even think Adobe said it could improve every aspect of their performance. That is another strawman. What they did say was"In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under either Linux or Mac OS X. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs." i.e. Access to the API for h.264 decoding was not available. 100% true. Some people just want to ignore this and set up and argue against arguments that no one actually made. It is easy to argue against those that say this will help make everything about Flash great, mainly only because no one actually said that (no one with a sane argument anyway).

Again, to repeat, this ain't gonna help anything in Flash but h.264 decoding.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

It's fine to say we should all embrace new technology. I'm all about that. But don't be fooled. Apple's is just looking out for their market share on this one -- not their users, and certainly not open source development.

It's fine to say we should all embrace new technology. I'm all about that. But don't be fooled. Apple's is just looking out for their market share on this one -- not their users, and certainly not open source development.

If data is accurate, 1 year after it's introduction (end of 2009) Android was selling 5.4 million per quarter.

1 year after iPhone introduction, highest quarter was 2.3 million... that was actually 3rd quarter, 4th was only 1.7 million but one can argue sales were going down due to 2nd iPhone launch. As per following graph:

If you consider that iPhone had no competition (in the same league) while Android has mighty iPhone to compete against... I'd say Android will do so much better than Zen did relative to iPod. So much better.

Do you use Apple products? iPod is simply better than ANY competing player. Use it for a day and you will never buy a different brand. Same with iPhone...

P.S. is there a study that shows how many iPhone users switch to a different brand?

Apple without Adobe applications? Hahaha, I don't think so. Apple isn't actually capable of writing anything similar to Adobe products, in fact all they are able is to playing with interface wrappers around other people's code. Lamers. I wish Adobe would just cancel all this CrApple shite.

Our trolls tend to be a little more resourceful and clever than this; "CrApple" usually means we're dealing with a 12 year old or a shut in of some sort.

I suggest channeling your bitterness and rage into elaborate alt personas with so many layers of misdirection no one can tell where you're coming from, which is a popular trolling strategy hereabouts. Failing that you might try "concern trolling" wherein you sadly acknowledge that Apple has had a good run and done some good work in their day, but are now being eclipsed by more nimble, geek friendly entities and will soon be but a footnote, as much as it pains you to admit.

Or they could just use the standard Cocoa frameworks and get the same benefit.

Really? Mind sourcing any of the APIs available through Cocoa that would have allowed Adobe to access the GPU for H.264 acceleration? To my knowledge this was only available through the Quicktime (X) API and is only now become a public API for use by third parties like Adobe. If what you say is true, could you provide any evidence to back it up, or are you just stating that since it fits with your view?

No other third party apps had access to an Apple API to allow H.264 acceleration, but Adobe did? I didn't realize Adobe and Apple had become so chummy again that Apple would give them exclusive access.

Actually I guess you stated that the 'standard Cocoa' APIs would provide the same benefit. Someone should alert Apple, because the certainly didn't think so and hence created a private (until now) API just for this purpose. It was only available in Quicktime, but now is available to all third parties. They really should stop wasting time creating brand new APIs that duplicate existing APIs.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

It's interesting to see Google begin to cave on open internet as well (embracing Flash on Android) . Their integrity and "do no evil" mantra seems to erode a bit more day by day.

Heaven forbid a company actually listen to what its customers want. If Android users want flash on their devices, why shouldn't Google facilitate that? Only the most ardent fanboy would see Google meeting a customer demand as an attack on the open internet. It's not like Google has stopped supporting HTML 5. They simply don't think that they should stop supporting Flash right now. There are still some out there who actually want to be able to access any website they want on their mobile device. Good on Google for giving their customers what they want.

Really? Mind sourcing any of the APIs available through Cocoa that would have allowed Adobe to access the GPU for H.264 acceleration? To my knowledge this was only available through the Quicktime (X) API and is only now become a public API for use by third parties like Adobe. If what you say is true, could you provide any evidence to back it up, or are you just stating that since it fits with your view?

QTKit has been out for a while.

Quote:

No other third party apps had access to an Apple API to allow H.264 acceleration, but Adobe did? I didn't realize Adobe and Apple had become so chummy again that Apple would give them exclusive access.

I'm not really sure what this means or is in response to.

Quote:

Actually I guess you stated that the 'standard Cocoa' APIs would provide the same benefit. Someone should alert Apple, because the certainly didn't think so and hence created a private (until now) API just for this purpose. It was only available in Quicktime, but now is available to all third parties. They really should stop wasting time creating brand new APIs that duplicate existing APIs.

Well, maybe they released this now because they were tired of Adobe's whining.

I'm a little surprised Apple would bother getting into a public tit for tat on this, just because the whole question of "open" versus "proprietary" is not something that most consumers generally care about. I think this is really more of a developer issue. Consumers don't care if Flash or html5 are "open" or "proprietary" -- from their point of view, both are "free" to use. Apple should focus on making the argument that their solution results in a better experience for consumers than Flash.

Bang on. As a consumer, I care about being able to access the internet. The whole internet. Do I care about the geek war in the background over whether a proprietary plug-in or open standard is better? Probably not. I just want a page to load well and for me to be able to access any content I want. Unfortunately, neither Apple (there's also their stance on JavaFX) or Adobe is making it easier for consumers right now.

As I said, it has been available through Quicktime. QTKit would require them to only support the formats that Quicktime supports. Flash renders video differently than Quicktime. So, they would have to rewrite their rendering engine and thereby only support the formats that QuickTime supports. In essence they would simply be a Quicktime wrapper. This is not the same all having access to an API to access the GPU acceleration for H.264. NVIDIA's VP3 is meant to provide H.264 acceleration not just Quicktime acceleration.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymouse

Well, maybe they released this now because they were tired of Adobe's whining.

probably. And anyone else that wanted to add hardware acceleration for H.264 playback. Quicktime is not the be all and end all of video play back on the Mac. Fortunately there are 3rd party apps that fill some of the gaps. You might even have used some of them. Now they too can add acceleration for their h.264 playback for formats other than Quicktime supported.

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro.

On February 2, 2010 MPEG LA announced that H.264-encoded Internet Video that is free to end users would continue to be exempt from royalty fees until at least December 31, 2015. [11] However, other fees remain in place.

So from that description it seems there are fees in place now, and no one knows how much those fees will increase in 2016.

Well, maybe they released this now because they were tired of Adobe's whining.

And:

"More of this tired nonsense? This is just the most ridiculous, baseless claim out of Adobe ever. Adobe has had access to all the APIs they need to make Flash not suck on Macs. That they aren't using them is no one's fault but their own. I can't believe Adobe can actually get anyone to believe this stuff they put out." (anoymouse)
---

It means that just because you say that Adobe has access to all the API's they need to make flash run efficiently does not make it so. Now that they do, let's see what difference it makes.

"More of this tired nonsense? This is just the most ridiculous, baseless claim out of Adobe ever. Adobe has had access to all the APIs they need to make Flash not suck on Macs. That they aren't using them is no one's fault but their own. I can't believe Adobe can actually get anyone to believe this stuff they put out." (anoymouse)
---

It means that just because you say that Adobe has access to all the API's they need to make flash run efficiently does not make it so. Now that they do, let's see what difference it makes.

I'm with the guy who posted that Flash is much more than banner ads. It is a real programming and run time environment to do real work. I understand Apple being grumpy that the Flash runtime has poor performance on Mac OS. But the Flash development tools are worthwhile and professional grade. Blocking the cross-compiler is just petty. I hope Apple shoots themselves in the foot by also blocking very popular engines like Unity, MonoTouch, and others. And gets in some kind of legal trouble if they selectively enforce the "no cross-compiler" rule.

- Jasen.

really ?? you lost an app??

Quote:

Originally Posted by SSquirrel

Firewire was mostly used for external hard drives, cameras and music equipment. With the advent of USB2 the speeds got to the point where they were close enough that for most people it didn't matter. Only a few computer companies (Sony's IEEE1394 ports come to mind) besides Apple ever really got behind Firewire much. As USB has spread so much, the number of products sold with Firewire still included have shrunk even more. Music interfaces can use USB2 and ASIO drivers to achieve 0 latency, so its even becoming less needed in one of its last few holdouts.

No .
FireWire is still the fastest game in town <<i think >>,<<E-SATA ??>>>anyway
I port over 300 g files all the time.
and by FIVE WIRE its takes hrs
by USB2 if it does not crash its takes 2x AS LONG.

Since 85 percent of all itunes users and ipad /iphone. ipod itouch owners are birthed and will die in the wintel msft bloat world .AND since they will never know the pure joy of snowy love . .err err hmm . well i forget what i was saying
anyway
APPLE to save money is using THEIR standard of USB . and not its own standard .
APPLE THINKS about non mac users in the fire wire debate .

APPLE woke up and put FW back ..thank god

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymouse

Actually, I said, "Blah blah blah, Flash 10.1, blah blah blah," which is very much to the point, unless you are determined to ignore the point. All this blather, yes blather, about Flash 10.1 and how great it is and how it will be so wonderful on mobile devices is just that... blather. Flash 10.1 is at this moment vaporware, so what truthfully can be said about it? Nothing.

Oh, yes, and it's dishonest of you to suggest that all I said was, "blah blah blah .... blah blah blah." Perhaps this will jog your memory:

Apple has just released a new API that will allow for Adobe to finally offer hardware accelerated Flash on Mac computers.

Which should mean that Adobe simply could not hardware accelerate Flash on OSX, not that they have chosen not to do so.

Interesting timing by Apple, by the way. Trying to kill Flash last traces of on iDevices, while opening more to Flash on desktops. What gives?

Damn you to zune accessory world dude
you forced me to read 6 pagers of junk before you supply a great topic ending point .
good one ..

And apple has a simple game plan that states if you fuck with UI in anyway bad way like battery draining banner ads or 30 second web page opening time lags then APPLE will create equal or better work arounds.

IE; APERTURE was a direct response to repeated 18 month or longer delays in ADOBE upgrading APPLE SW programs like photo shop or other creative suites. ADOBE even started to port some SW over rather fresh re writes. SCum bubbles

AD0BE felt THAT had apple by the balls ,,AND THEY DID !! for a time.
10 yrs down the road and adobe still acts like they are the kings of the hill .
Apple has moved to light speed futuristic devices that warrant 2015 type innovations. HTML5 is only the ground floor to what will be needed >>
Low power Fast loading Tiny devices demand this >>If they are to do things like stream hulu live on a wrist watch and still get a 7 hrs battery charge. Adobe IS being licked and dragged into the new brave wortld of PERFECT UI type computing.

ADOBE IS A FINE FINE COMPANY
NO ONE CAN TOUCH WHAT THEY DO
and if you do something they can't then they will buy your company and kill the the product or stamp the ADOBEE moniker on it.
LIKE THAT GREAT SW GO LIVE . That was so great until adobe bought them up ....any way my rant over flows >>> My point is ADOBE could create 5 or 6 app's for the IPAD that could be game changing for the whole market ... whole creative world down to 3rd graders,,

instead adobe pouts like a bit//////
move on ..ok ..

Adobe has to bow and serve apple ... its master //and lose its ego ....

No .
FireWire is still the fastest game in town <<i think >>,<<E-SATA ??>>>anyway
I port over 300 g files all the time.
and by FIVE WIRE its takes hrs
by USB2 if it does not crash its takes 2x AS LONG.

I never said USB2 had gotten to be faster than Firewire, but it was way faster than original USB and was fast enough for most people. I'm guessing it was also cheaper/easier to add USB than Firewire b/c more and more devices supported while Firewire was on less and less. USB is VHS, Firewire is Betamax. Happens all the time

It means that just because you say that Adobe has access to all the API's they need to make flash run efficiently does not make it so. Now that they do, let's see what difference it makes.

Just because Apple gave them the API they were demanding, doesn't mean that Flash could not have sucked without it. But, this does shut up their whining.

Flash is dead. Adapt or find a new career.

Edit: And, let's assume that Flash can't not suck without this API. A 3rd-party technology that must dictate hardware design and what APIs must be made public, has no place on iPhone, iPad, Macs, or anywhere else. Flash needs to die so technology and the web can progress in a way that's best, not a way that is best for Adobe.

Do you use Apple products? iPod is simply better than ANY competing player. Use it for a day and you will never buy a different brand. Same with iPhone...

Yes, I do have iPhone 3Gs. However I also had Creative Zen. I gave it to a relative when I got iPhone - I don't need 2 MP3 players - but I did like it. Some things - simple drag&drop, freedom to organize music as you want - were, for me, preferable to how iPhone/iTunes are organizing things. Audio quality was good, as was battery life for such a small device. I really didn't see it inferior to price comparable iPod at the time (was it iPod Mini?).

Quote:

P.S. is there a study that shows how many iPhone users switch to a different brand?

Not that I am aware of, but that is actually interesting question. If I came across any, I'll link it here.